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neurosurgery/brain’ Category

Bernadette Dunn, MD, and Claudine Ward, MD, are board certified in the new subspecialty of brain injury medicine. They explain the types of patients they care for and the types of changes a patient may experience after a traumatic brain injury.

Neurosurgeons Lawrence Chin, MD, and Zulma Tovar-Spinoza, MD, introduce the expansive new operating suite which includes a powerful 3 tesla magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This new suite is an ideal choice for patients who require surgery of the brain or spine, because the operating room opens directly into the room with the MRI scanner. Surgeons can arrange for certain patients to undergo imaging during their operation. Though it is located within the Upstate Cancer Center, the operating suite is also used for patients who have noncancerous tumors.

One minute, Edward St. George was on the deck of his family cottage on the St. Lawrence River in Cape Vincent, taking measurements for vinyl siding work he was doing that day.

The next, he was falling from the granite ledge the deck overlooked. His neck and upper back struck the edge of the rock about five feet down. He fell over the cliff, slamming against rock abutments for 15 or 20 feet on his way to the ground. Two or three barrel rolls later, his body came to rest against the back of a neighbor’s cottage.

“All I could do was breathe and blink my eyes. I couldn’t even make a sound. I remember looking out of the corner of my eye and seeing what I thought was my hand, and I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t move anything,” St. George recalls.

The drama that unfolded among the boulders in Cape Vincent stretched into the emergency department and operating rooms at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse and into the physical and occupational therapy unit at Strong Memorial Hospital, near St. George’s home in suburban Rochester.

Geriatrician Sharon Brangman, MD, is joined by researcher Alexander Travis, PhD, to talk about their collaborative work on a new research project that hopes to improve the diagnosis of neural diseases and neurotoxins, including stroke, Alzheimer’s Disease, and traumatic brain injury. In addition to Upstate, the following campuses are participating in the project: University at Buffalo, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, Cornell University and SUNY Cortland. Brangman is professor of Medicine and division chief of Geriatrics at Upstate, and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Assistance Center (ADAC). Travis is associate professor of Reproductive Biology at the Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell University.

Upstate neurologist Gene Latorre, MD, is joined by his patient Warren Darby, who shares his personal experience and recovery from an hemorrhagic stroke. Latorre, director of neurocritical care at the Upstate Stroke Center, stresses the importance of receiving urgent evaluation at a specialized stroke center to decrease mortality and improve outcomes for stroke. Darby is Undersheriff for the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office.

Events: March 11, 7 pm at Holy Cross Church in Dewitt – Join Monsignor Robert Yeazel and Rabbi Charles Sherman as two faith leaders from our community talk frankly about the big questions in life. The evening marks the release of Rabbi Sherman’s critically-acclaimed book.

Derek Cooney, MD, director of emergency medical services and disaster medicine at Upstate, is joined by emergency physician William Paolo, MD, to help us understand fainting – or syncope- a sudden, brief loss of consciousness caused by decreased blood flow to the brain.

Dr. Zulma Tovar-Spinoza, MD, director of pediatric neurosurgery, discusses a minimally invasive treatment for children with brain tumors and epilepsy, using MRI-guided laser, now available at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital. Dr. Tovar Spinoza is a pioneer in this new technique and Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital is among the first in the country to offer this minimally invasive surgery that is producing encouraging results for patients and families. Watch Dr. Tovar-Spinoza’s video on YouTube.

Read the blog: Peds to Parents – Notes from Upstate Professionals to Parents and Caregivers

As the school year approaches, we are joined by Leonard Newman, PhD, area director of the Social Psychology program at Syracuse University, to discuss the growing stigma attached to mental illness in the wake of recent mass shootings, and why it is so difficult to undermine.

Upstate’s Chair of Neurosurgery Lawrence Chin, MD talks about the diagnosis and treatment of trigeminal neuralgia (TN), a chronic pain condition that affects the trigeminal or 5th cranial nerve, one of the largest nerves in the head. Learn more about the Upstate Gamma Knife Center.